How to Snap Roll a Stunt Plane

A snap roll is a high-speed 360-degree rotation of an aircraft on its yaw axis, the line perpendicular to the wings. Five-time U.S. National Aerobatic champion Kirby Chambliss says a snap roll feels "five or six times more intense than the craziest roller-coaster ride." So it's surprising to hear Chambliss, who flies up to three times a day, six days a week, say he could coach the average person to do one in about 30 minutes. "You don't need to be a pilot—the plane doesn't know you don't know how to fly it," he says. "Some pilots are worse at it. They're not used to flying upside down."

Kirby Chambliss is a two-time Red Bull Air Race World Champion and a five-time U.S. National Aerobatic Champion. He began flying at 13, and by 24, became the youngest commercial pilot at Southwest Airlines. (He didn't do any snap rolls while flying for Southwest.)

The Project: Snap-Rolling A Stunt Plane

A snap roll is a 360 degree auto rotation or "horizontal spin." The idea is to stall one wing of the plane, causing a high-speed roll. "In a fraction of a second the world will explode right in front of you," Chambliss says. "It's about 5 or 6 times what you'd feel on the craziest roller coaster — and you don't have to stay on the tracks."

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Time Involved:

"I could take the average person up there and coach them through it in about 30 minutes. You don't need to be a pilot. Sometimes pilots are actually worse at it. They're not used to flying upside-down. I've had a few of them get sick. Of course, you may run into some trouble landing it, but the plane doesn't know you don't know how to fly it."

Tools Required:

A top-of-the-line aerobatic aircraft like a Zivko Edge 540. "If you attempted this in a non-aerobatic plane you could snap the wings right off," Mr. Chambliss says. You also need an expert like Kirby Chambliss to guide you through it. Flawless timing, 20/20 peripheral vision and total fearlessness doesn't hurt either.

Most Popular

Step-By-Step:

1. Get the plane up to speed. "120 knots is a good entry speed," Mr. Chambliss says.

2. Rapidly and aggressively pull the control stick back to abruptly pitch the nose of the plane upward.

3. Step on the right rudder pedal, causing the left wing to lift and move forward while the right wing stalls"For a normal roll, you'd gently pull the stick back to move the nose up," Chambliss says. "For a snap-roll it has to be super-fast in order to stall the wing." Hold on. "The plane will be spinning at an extremely high rotation rate of about 500 degrees per second as the left wing flies, causing a huge lift, and the right wing stalls, causing no lift."

4. Guide the stick forward and depress the left rudder pedal to re-engage airflow to the right wing. Here's where timing comes in. "You need to get the plane upright so you don't get stuck upside-down or on its side. The goal is to snap the right wing back into action, getting the airflow to reattach itself to the wing in order to straighten the plane out." This is easier said than done. "I've been doing this so long, I'm really at one with my planes," Mr. Chambliss says. "I think of the wings as extensions of my arms."

5. Land safely and post a video of yourself on YouTube.

Warning: "It's common to get stuck flying upside-down, but the ultimate nightmare scenario would be the wings coming off the plane," Mr. Chambliss says, laughing. "That's why you really shouldn't do this in anything other than an aerobatic aircraft. You can't break an Edge 540 in the air, the only way to damage them is if they hit the ground." Crashing to the ground also qualifies as a nightmare scenario.

Glossary:

Yaw Axis: The yaw axis is perpendicular to the wings and lies in the plane of the aircraft center line.

Yaw Motion: A side-to-side movement of the nose of the aircraft caused by the deflection of the rudder of the aircraft.

Here's a montage of Chambliss performing some unbelievable aerial stunts: